Salem leaders are fighting the good fight in their opposition to the state's effort to place tolls on Interstate 93.
New Hampshire highway officials claim the tolls are needed to help pay for the widening of the interstate between Salem and Manchester.
But New Hampshire residents had better believe that, if those tolls ever go up, they will never come down — not even after the widening project is done and paid for.
State Department of Transportation Commissioner George Campbell met last week with Salem leaders to discuss the toll proposal. The state is looking at tolls as one way to address a $240 million shortfall in the widening project's budget.
The toll would be placed between Exit 1 and the Massachusetts border and likely would be set at $1.50.
It doesn't take a great genius to note that the heavy traffic on I-93 during morning and evening rush hours consists of New Hampshire residents commuting to and from their jobs in Massachusetts. A toll just north of the border would hit these commuters hard.
Salem political leaders, Republican and Democrat, are united in their opposition to the toll plan. The Board of Selectmen is also solidly against it.
Their concern is that the toll would hurt Salem's retail businesses, which rely heavily on Massachusetts residents trekking north of the border to avoid the Bay State's 6.25 percent sales tax. They are also worried that drivers seeking to dodge the tolls would crowd on to Route 28 and the town's secondary roads.
"To circumvent that tollbooth, anybody living in the area would know you go down 28," state Sen. Mike Downing, R-Salem, told reporter Jillian Jorgensen. "There's a number of ways to get around it but it all puts traffic on secondary roads."
Selectmen are drafting a letter to the state expressing their opposition to the tolls. They, and Salem residents, need to keep up the drumbeat.
"We have such, it seems, poor representation in this commuter triangle that we seem to be the first guys they'll throw off the bus if need be," Salem Democratic Town Committee Chairwoman Laurel Redden said.
If the effort to stop the tolls fails, Salem residents will be paying for a long, long time. Once in place, the tolls will never go away. When the widening project is complete, there will be some other "important" reason why they must remain.
